From a noneuphoric strain that will soon be grown legally in Florida, to a bunch of communities rushing to decriminalize small amounts of pot, to a proposed constitutional amendment that would greatly expand medicinal marijuana around here.

Like it or not, pot is about to become a larger part of society.

And Florida ain’t ready for it.

At least not from one important legal perspective.

Like a lot of other states tinkering with more permissive marijuana laws, Florida does not yet have a firm handle on how to determine when a person is driving under the influence.

For one thing, pot is not as easily measured as alcohol on the roadside. Even blood tests have some drawbacks. And, most confounding of all, there are no definitive studies to determine at what level a driver using marijuana is considered impaired.

“To the best of my knowledge, nobody has undertaken the experiments necessary to correlate blood or breath concentration levels with impairment,” said Dr. Rick Yost, a University of Florida researcher who is helping develop a marijuana breath test. “We’ve certainly never conducted tests at this university because it’s been illegal.”

More specifically, the federal government classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug (considered among the most dangerous), which prevents research into its effects.

This incongruity — the federal government treating it like a scourge while more and more states are opening pot shops — is the definition of preposterous.

And it is causing states to set unproven, and arbitrary, levels of impairment. Twelve states presume impairment if any trace of THC (the chemical responsible for marijuana’s psychological effects) is found in the bloodstream. Two states set impairment levels at 5 nanograms of THC, two states set it at 2 nanograms and one state is at 1 nanogram.

Florida, like most states, doesn’t even have a set standard for marijuana impairment. That fact has always troubled state Rep. Dave Kerner, D-Lake Worth, who previously dealt with DUI cases as both a police officer and a prosecutor.

When a 16-year-old Palm Beach County girl was killed last year in a motor scooter accident involving a driver who had marijuana in his system, Kerner crafted legislation that would set a marijuana impairment standard to be used only in fatal traffic accidents.

His legislation proposed 5 nanograms of THC, a figure Kerner said was based on his research of laws in other states.

“That number was a starting point, and I’m open to changing it.” Kerner said. “More than anything, I want us to have a conversation and a dialogue legislatively so we can arrive at the right answer.

“I’m supportive of relaxing our marijuana laws, but the reality is if we do that, we have to have a system in place for accountability. And right now, it doesn’t exist.”

The issue is we have two bedrocks of society that may be at odds here. No. 1 is public safety. Everyone can agree that roads need to be as safe as possible from impaired drivers. No. 2 is justice. What happens if we start locking people up at 5 nanograms, and later discover that impairment is actually at a higher level?

Another problem with blood tests is marijuana can stay in the bloodstream for up to a week. So a person may test positive for THC, but not have any impairment whatsoever. That’s what makes Yost’s breath test technology so important because it would be a greater indicator of recent use.

“The science does not yet exist to determine impairment levels,” said Jodi James, executive director of the Florida Cannabis Network. “And we can’t just use some arbitrary scale that could potentially ruin someone’s life.”

This is a problem, but it’s not difficult to solve.

Just as we once used controlled tests to see how increasing amounts of alcohol affected a person’s focus and motor skills, we can do the same with marijuana. Fund a study and get verifiable results instead of just plucking numbers out of the air.

Having a set number and a reliable field test, such as the UF prototype, could also allow law enforcement to catch more impaired drivers before crashes occur.

Of course, all of this would require lawmakers to demonstrate some vision and responsibility. And those seem to be rare qualities in Tallahassee these days.

Kerner, as a Democrat in the Republican-controlled House, hasn’t even been able to get anyone from the Highway and Waterway Safety Subcommittee to talk about his bill.

Kerner’s bill may not be the answer, but ignoring the issue isn’t going to solve it either.

Florida has a potential problem with marijuana and impaired drivers, and it’s way past time for lawmakers to recognize it.